>From Ralph Dumain's MarxistPhilosophy list, see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marxistphilosophy/
On Sat, 25 Jan 2003 15:47:21 -0500 Ralph Dumain <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Speaking of science, yesterday I made a pilgrimage to see the > Einstein > exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. > Einstein > was my boyhood hero, and I've been a consumer of Einstein lore ever > since, > when it comes my way. So, while there's not much likely to > surprise, I can > take note of changes in the presentation of Einstein to the public, > if > nothing else. > > The only real advantage of going to the exhibit personally is to see > > certain artifacts up close: official documents, family heirlooms > (teacups > emblazoned with photos of child Albert and his sister), Einstein's > pipes, > diaries, correspondence, famous documents (letter to Roosevelt > proposing > atomic research, letter to Bertrand Russell on peace movement, > letter > declining the presidency of Israel, etc.), manuscripts or facsimiles > > thereof on relativity, photos, a statue, etc., and a short > documentary film > with some adorable Einstein film footage. There are also interactive > > exhibits on gravitation, black holes, etc. Otherwise, you can get > the gist > of it by visiting the web site: > http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/einstein/. > > What has changed in the presentation of Einstein the man since days > of > yore? Well, there's a lot more publicity on Einstein's love > affairs, > including the extramarital ones. I don't remember anyone > publicizing this > stuff 30-40 years ago, but here you get to read a few of his love > letters. Certainly, none of the older biographies of Einstein made any mention of his love life and his womanizing. Now a days, it would seem that hardly anyone can avoid mentioning the subject when they write about Einstein's life. >While Einstein's pacificism has been always well-known and > to a > lesser extent his opposition to McCarthyism, the political Einstein > gets > much wider coverage now. There is more on McCarthyism, on > Einstein's > advocacy of resistance, and now information on Einstein's thick FBI > file > and the government's distrust of him as a left-winger. Also on > display is > the original manuscript in German of Einstein's essay "Why > Socialism?" for > the _Monthly Review_ in 1949. BTW available online at http://www.monthlyreview.org/598einst.htm > > While Einstein's support of the establishment of Israel is > well-known, less > well-known is his particular conception of what he hoped for, > including > amicable relations between Jews and Arabs. Einstein's Zionism embraced the idea of a secular, bi-national, Jewish-Arab state. This sort of Zionism was shared with certain other intellectuals like Hannah Arendt, Martin Buber, and Judah B. Magnes. His long time conception of Zionism was represented in this statement which appears in his book *From Out of My Later Years*: "I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state. Apart from the practical considerations, my awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain -- especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight without a Jewish state." Einstein with the greatest of reluctance endorsed the UN's plan for splitting up the Palestinian Mandate into two separate states(one Jewish and one Arab). An issue that might be worth investigating would Einstein's real reasons for turning down the presidency of Israel. At the time he said that he turned it down because he felt unqualified for the job. I suspect that there was much more to it than that, that he probably felt very conflicted about Israel's policies towards the Palestinian Arabs, but I would like to see this issue investigated more deeply than I have seen it thus far. >There are some hints > here of > the nuances of Einstein's position, e.g. that he might have to tell > Israelis things they don't want to hear. I suspect that had a lot to do with his refusal of the Israeli presidency. >Einstein still seems > excessively > idealistic in his conception of a Jewish state, ironic given his > distrust > of all governments. One does get an idea of the tensions that > Einstein had > to negotiate within his own world view, i.e. his cosmopolitanism and > > aversion to all nationalism, and his support of the Jewish state as > the > only means of self-defense against persecution. We should keep in mind that he didn't become a Zionist after WW I. Indeed, it was not until then, that he even publicly identify himself as a Jew until then. He was the son of freethinking parents, and after a brief period of religiosity (around the age of 12 or so), he became one himself, and remained so for the rest of his life. When he accepted the chair in theoretical physics in Prague, he was required under the laws of Austria-Hungary to declare his religious identification, and he identified himself as a freethinker. And he continued to do so when he went to Germany (which had similar laws). He did not declare himself as a Jew until after WW I, when leaders of the Jewish community in Germany urged him to do so, in order to protest the growth in anti-Semitism there. >One thing that > could have > been mentioned, but was not, was the very last words Einstein wrote, > hours > before he dropped dead in April 1955, which was on the problems in > the > Middle East, relating his fear that Israel would get sucked into the > > imperialist ambitions and rivalries of the great powers. As I recall, he was writing about the growing conflict between Israel and Egypt. He could already percieve the movement of events which would lead to the Suez Crisis, the following year, in which Israel collaborated with the British and the French to attack Egypt, following Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal. > > There's nothing much new about Israel, though. The other big thing > that is > new is Einstein's support of civil rights and his opposition to > American > racism. I knew something of this for some decades, i.e. Einstein's > alliance with Paul Robeson in the late '40s to oppose lynching. But > there > is much more information being presented now. I only discovered > Einstein's > association with W.E.B. Du Bois recently, but it was describe in the > > exhibit, in a whole section devoted to civil rights, with photos of > Du > Bois, Robeson on a picket line, and Marian Anderson. I didn't know > that > long before Marian Anderson was refused permission to sing at > Constitution > Hall, she was also refused permission in Princeton, and Einstein > invited > her to stay with him, whereupon they became friends. There is also > a photo > of Einstein with the president of Lincoln University (a black > college in > Pennsylvania where Einstein would visit to teach, not mentioned in > the > exhibit), giving a public talk mentioning racism as America's > Achilles > Heel. It would have even been better to include a photograph I've > only > seen once, consisting only of Einstein surrounded by a group of > black > students. What a striking image this would have been to show the > public. > > So, as usual, a lot of focus on Einstein the man, his personal > qualities, > his humanitarian values and political interests, and, importantly, > on > Einstein's intellectual independence and distrust of all authority. > How > about the science? An exploration of Einstein's evolving views concerning the philosophy of science might be of interest. As a young physicist, he was very much influenced by the writings of Ernst Mach, especially his book *The Science of Mechanics*. And the influence of Machist reasoning is pretty evident in some of his early papers, including especially his "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" where he presented his theory of special relativity. His analysis of our concepts of simultaniety, and hence of our concepts of space and time, was strongly influuenced by Mach, as was his equivalence principle when he began work on general relativity. And yet as his thinking concerning the philosophy of science matured, he came to reject many aspects of Machism, especially Mach's sensationism, instead opting for a scientific realism. An interesting exercise might be to compare Einstein's critiques of Mach with those that Lenin presented in his *Materialism and Empiriocriticism*. And this rejection of aspects of Machism was later reflected in his attitudes towards logical empiricism. The logical positivists from the beginning hailed Einstein as one of their intellectual heroes. His work was viewed by them as examplifying the new outlook in physics, which they claimed to analyze from a philosophical standpoint, but Einstein's own view of the matter was rather critical as represented by his replies to Hans Reichenbach and Philipp Frank in the Schilpp volumes, *Albert Einstein , Philosopher - Scientist*. > > There is of course a great deal of attention on Einstein's > revolutionary > innovations, the four fundamental papers of 1905, a manuscript of > 1912, the > publication of general relativity in 1916, the Nobel Prize, the > controversy > over quantum mechanics, the search for a unified field theory, and > the > development of cosmology. His views on quantum mechanics are of some interest. He was one of the founding fathers of quantum theory, starting with his classic 1905 paper on the photoelectric effect, in which he found that the known empirical data concerning photoelectricity could be best explained in terms of Max Plank's quanta hypothesis. Some years later, Einstein wrote another important paper on the quantum theoretic analysis of EM radiation with matter. When in the 1920s and 1930s the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics was developed by Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr, Einstein emerged as a strong dissident against the new consensus in modern physics. As a strong Spinozan determinist, he was not at all happy with quantum indeterminism as represented in Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, and he spent some years trying to devise thought experiments that would refute it. In the Schilpp volumes, there is a paper by Bohr which describes these proposed thought experiments and his own responses to them, Bohr having been able to successfully rebut Einstein's attempted refutations of the Uncertainty Principle. Ultimately, Einstein developed his own interpretation of quantum mechanics. He hoped that at a deeper level there would be a realistic non-statistical description of nature, with no reference to an observer, which would ultimately be revealed in a new physical theory that would supersede quantum mechanics. Meanwhile, he argued that quantum wave functions were best interpreted as describing the behaviors of ensembles of particles. The physicist David Bohm who developed the causal or "hidden variables" interpretation of quantum mechanics, in opposition to the Copenhagen Interpretation was inspired by Einstein, who encouraged him in his work. Bohm was BTW at that time a Marxist who was close to the CPUSA, and in the McCarthy era, he had to flee from the US, eventually taking up residence in the UK. >Einstein's imagination, his unique way of > asking > questions, is addressed. As for the scientific content, it wasn't > bad but > could have been better. Of course here we are talking about special > and > general relativity. The usual mystifications of science > popularization in > this country are absent, but it also means that certain conceptions > are not > sufficiently clarified. > > There is, to be sure, a clear exposition of the implications of the > constancy of the speed of light regardless of frame of reference. > The > clock paradox / time dilation is explained reasonably. However, I > was > unsatisfied with the presentation of certain fundamental concepts. > While > the non-existence of a universal world-instant was not hard to > understand, > there was no explanation I can recall of how measuring the > space-time > relation is affected by different frames of reference. > Philosophically, as > usual, the very concept of time, the idea that "time" slows down or > speeds > up, demands closer scrutiny, though the particulars of what happens > are > explained very well. The exhibits are designed to illustrate these > things. > > The exposition of general relativity includes several visual > illustrations > of the notion of gravitation as a warping of space rather than a > force. While they illustrate what they illustrate as best they can, > the > actual explanation of what this means is lacking as usual. It is > all > instruction by analogy, and the possible limitations of these > analogies are > never discussed. For example, if you lay down a rubber sheet with > grid > lines on it, and roll a heavy steel ball over the grid, you can see > the > sheet, i.e. "space", warping as the weight of the ball bends it out > of > shape. However, the rubber sheet is a tangible object. What is > "space", > though, that it can be warped? What does this really mean as a > physical > concept? Similarly, what does it mean to alter the geometry of > space? Riemannian geometry is not explained. What we have, as > usual, is > an analogy between the visualizable deformation of a planar object > in > three-dimensional space, and the non-visualizable curvature of > three-dimensional space? But the nature of this "curvature" is > never > explained. Hence all these visual aids help to popularize these > theories > by making them more tangible, but at the same time they leave the > meanings > of the fundamental concepts unclear and they cover up some of the > profoundest philosophical questions about the nature of these > concepts. > > The extensions of Einstein's revolution are most visible now in > cosmology, > and the visual and interactive displays on black holes are most > interesting. As an aside, after the main museum closed, I visited > the very > elaborate exposition in the Rose Center where the Hayden Planetarium > is > housed. I was rather overwhelmed by the universe, and was > completely > exhausted before I could inspect every galaxy and read every text. > (Loved > this stuff as a kid, but there is so much more to know now, > including all > the crap floating around this solar system.) However, in viewing > the > interactive videos in which various (astro)physicists explains the > frontiers of their science--what they need to solve to complete the > picture > of the Big Bang, the unified theory of everything, superstring > theory, I > couldn't help but being struck by a certain philosophical naivete > underlying their theoretical sophistication. > > However, I was excited just to be at the exhibit, taking in the > presentation while listening to the magnificent ethereal strains of > the > last movement of Hans Holst's "The Planets"--"Neptune" (the > mystic)--in the > background. While little of any of this information was new to me, > I can > only imagine how some kid exposed to this stuff for the first time > might > react. Einstein still has the power to inflame the human > imagination--what > mattered to him more than anything--and this is indeed what matters > most. > > There has been through the decades a certain mystification of > Einstein, > usually tied to the mystification of his theories, which would tend > to make Einstein more of a fetish object than a real man and a real > > scientist. (Roland Barthes wrote about this in the 1950s, but he > knew no > more to say.) For one exposition of the social basis of > mis-popularization, see this obscure old review in the Trotskyist > press of > _The Universe and Dr. > Einstein_: http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/barnett.html. > However, > in spite of the hype and mystification whipped up by the press, > there is > something much more serious underlying the non-specialist public's > fascination with Einstein. I tried to describe what this is and why > it > matters in my commemorative essay "A Personal Tribute to Albert > Einstein > (14 March 1879 - 18 April 1955)": > http://www.autodidactproject.org/my/einstein.html. > > I'm getting a little verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves. > > > > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to > http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ > > > ________________________________________________________________ Sign Up for Juno Platinum Internet Access Today Only $9.95 per month! 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